


pieces of my past (that i've conveniently erased)

by gravitaz



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Backstory, Character Death, Character Study, Decapitation, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, also. alcohol use and gambling, love my sweet gentle crime girl, very brief allusion to suicidal thoughts but very very small and barely noticeable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-12
Updated: 2018-11-12
Packaged: 2019-08-22 10:11:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16595885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gravitaz/pseuds/gravitaz
Summary: Finch is 22 when she dies.Strich is 22 when she rises from the ashes.





	pieces of my past (that i've conveniently erased)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my oc Strich's backstory for a campaign we are calling La Heredera, set in a fantasy re-imagining of 1920's europe. it's totally baller and my dm is completely WRECKING me emotionally, so I thought I'd take a stab at turning the tables >:3
> 
> title is from sinner by deaf havana.

Finch is four years old.

She isn’t the richest little girl in the village, but that doesn’t matter; her papa told her so, and he’s never wrong. There are what seems like hundreds of tall trees to climb around the back of her cottage, and a couple of other children in the village to kick a ball around with. Though her mother scolds Finch when she rips her dress or scrapes her knee, she is always gentle, and holds the little girl in her arms and sings an old Gaelic lullaby until she is soothed and sleepy.

Wren is just learning to read. She’s teaching herself slowly and painfully, even though Finch finds what she’s doing horrifically boring. When she can stutter out the beginnings of a nursery rhyme from a page, their father goes into proud raptures and celebrates by making them both their favourite supper. Finch gives Wren a kiss on the cheek at the table and tells her she is “per-owd” too, and Wren giggles, and jokingly asks if Finch knows what that word means.

Despite the teasing, though, Finch and her twin are inseparable. When she is in trouble, she has normally led Wren by the hand into a mess that she has created. When they are tired, they tuck themselves into the same bed and let their mother sing her lullaby, though they do not yet know what it translates out to. Their father jokes that they must be joined at the wrist, the insistence that Wren has on keeping a tight grip on Finch’s hand.

“That’s  _silly_ , Papa,” Finch tells him, tittering, but she still tries to manoeuvre eating her supper with her right hand as Wren firmly grasps her dominant left. 

Naturally, as most things do, Finch grows older. Finding her feet in a village as small as hers is not difficult; she learns to read and write and count just as Wren had, and she puts those abilities to use in her father's workshop, counting out lengths of linen and writing out necessary materials for a dress he is commissioned to make. However, she feels a little empty – not unhappy, just like something is missing.

When Finch is twelve, although she is too young to know for sure, she feels as though she might finally understand what that something is.

The tent is pitched just a little outside the village. It is bright and gaudy, with red and white stripes and loud, unrelenting music pouring from its interior. Her parents pull together a gold piece each for admission, and the four of them sit a few rows from the front of the ring. The minute that the last rays of the sun fall behind the peaks of distant hills, an elegant-looking elven man in a red tailcoat and top hat enters the circle, brandishing a cane, and starts the show with a holler and a smile.

She doesn’t know it yet, but she'll remember one specific detail about this night well into her adult life.

The woman moves through the air like a  _fairy_ , so graceful and beautiful that Finch forgets that she’s clinging to a fixture in the ceiling. The silver threads in her leotard catch the gaslights that flood the ring and she  _glows_ , blissful and practiced in her motion. When she catches Finch’s eye, though Finch will later think that she imagined it, she gives her a wide grin and a wink.

She later sees the woman in all kinds of different acrobatic positions; one minute she’s soaring through the air on the end of silken ropes, the next she spins on the ground in a hoop that’s bigger than any Finch has ever seen. But one thing is certain, and when she leaves the tent that night, she turns to Wren and squeezes her hand.

“I wanna do  _that_ ,” she tells her sister earnestly. When she looks at her quizzically, Finch rolls her eyes and pulls on their father's sleeve. “Papa,” she says, a sunbeam in her eyes when he meets her gaze, “I wanna be that lady.”

He laughs, but just before their mother comes in to sing the twins both to sleep that night, she hears the two of them talking about it. He is very much in her corner, and it does not take their mother long to acquiesce and agree that, in that circus tent, she looked happier than she has almost ever looked. In that circus tent, it was almost like she found a second home.

Finch turns where you lies to face Wren, who looks back at her with a determined expression. She finds her hand under the blanket and takes it, clasping it tightly. When Finch grins at her, she simply shrugs.

“Well,” she says. “Someone’s gotta keep ya outta trouble.” 

\--

Training is really,  _really_ hard.

Finch has been attending classes now for nearly four years. Donovan is a kindly man, gentle in face and patient in demeanour, but she can’t help but feel that being an elf gives him an unfair advantage. When she saw the woman swinging in the rafters of the circus tent, she didn’t realise that it required so much core strength.

However, when Finch tells Donovan this, he just laughs and gives her a light tug on the ear. “Now now, Finch,” he tells her. “I haven’t trained you to give up, young miss. You’ll have this  _down_  in a few more years, I guarantee it.”

He further reminds her that this is the first time she has tried to haul herself into the air on a rope. She has spent her time learning to dance and can now do that with her eyes closed, and learning to sing and play the lyre was a walk in the park. Even learning to spin and dance with that large, metal hoop was easier than this. However, Donovan reassures her that the strength to climb a rope and dance in the air is easily acquired for someone like her, and encourages her not to give up.

And, of course, her pride and tenacity win out.

Wren flourishes at an equal speed. However, she takes more to the art of hanging silken sashes from the ceiling and entangling herself in them, around her wrists and her ankles, and she looks so graceful as she moves that Finch is reminded of the woman in the tent all those years ago. She resolves to match her sister’s pace. She does so.

By the time she is seventeen, not only has she managed to get herself up there, but she can flip and twirl and fucking  _fly_  like the bird she was named for. She is an  _artist_ , and both her and her twin are the pride and joy of their parents, who watch the last official practice they ever do with tears in their eyes.

Their father asks that, when they are selling out theatres and performing before nobility, that they remember who paid for their lessons. Finch laughs, and her mother pulls her into a tight embrace and tells her that she loves her, and that she can’t wait to see her in a tent of her own.

That makes Finch cry, just a little, when she’s on her own and packing away her practice costume.

Once that final learning curve has been traversed, everything just kind of falls into place. Donovan has no trouble pulling Finch and Wren into a troupe he forms himself, and their first tour is scheduled for a about six months away, the day after their eighteenth birthday.

Finch keeps her ability honed by dancing with her hoop in the village square, by climbing the trees outside her house like she did when she was but a girl. Of course, she practices her routine with the rest of the troupe, gripping her sister’s hand tight when they rehearse their bows for the last time. Wren gives Finch a nervous grin, a grin that betrays her fear for her future. And being honest, as Finch rarely is, she relates to it.

Six months pass at an unimaginable speed, and before Finch knows it she is lying in bed on the night of her eighteenth birthday. She packed her bags last night, ready to depart in the morning, but there is a part of her that is gnawing at her chest with unquantifiable anxiety, as though she is forgetting something. She runs through the list of what you wanted to take with her in her head, checking everything off, there must be  _something_ , how could she have been so  _careless_ -

The floorboards creak, and her mattress gives under the weight of another body.

“Are you nervous?” Wren asks. Finch nods. 

Wren needs no more. She wraps her arms around her sister and sings a song that their mother stopped singing to them years ago, one in Gaelic, a lullaby that they had learned tells little birds to go to sleep. How apt, indeed, Finch finds herself thinking as she joins in. 

The tempest swirling in her brain calms as she look at Wren’s face, gently illuminated by the starlight pouring through the window. Finch’s mirror image, her shadow, she is there and she realises she is not going anywhere. She realises that she is coming with her on this adventure, and any and all adventures to come.

The thought soothes her into slumber. 

Fast forward another four years, and Finch is  _flying_.

Finch has never been unhappy, far from it. Despite her tendency toward anxiety and anger, she was always a happy girl. But this does not compare to happiness. Having a crowd chant her name every show, having an audience sing her praises – this is what she was  _born_  for. This beats working in her father’s tailoring business by a country mile.

It’s not even all about the performances. Finch joins Wren and Donovan, who becomes an older brother figure to the two of them. He drives the car that they use to take them from place, even teaches her and her sister how to drive it. He cooks their meals and makes sure they have enough blankets at night. He soothes her when she is anxious and laughs with her when she’s on a high.

The rest of her troupe is a cobbled together family, but a family none the less. 

Morigana teaches Finch to hold her own against less savoury patrons, even sends one of said patrons flying when she slugs him in the jaw, but she has the most angelic singing voice Finch has ever heard from the lips of an orc and treats the twins like fine china, gentle and loving. Garrick frequently sends her into fits of laughter with his stupid stories and drunken songs. Trina makes sure that she is safe during her act and quickly becomes a shoulder to cry on, when she needs it. Seán constantly complains about his halfling stature and sends her eyes rolling like marbles, but he is also one of the sweetest men she ever has the pleasure of meeting.

And  _Wren_ , Wren emerges from her chrysalis in the most beautiful way she could possibly imagine. Her timid shadow becomes a mirror image, and then she becomes her own confident woman. Finch is younger (even if only by ten minutes), but she cannot calm the swell of sisterly pride that rises in her chest when she thinks of how Wren has grown. 

They still hold each other’s hands along the journey. When they bow, they stand next to each other and grip each other firmly, like a life preserver. They still sing that sweet old lullaby to each other. It isn’t long before Finch realises that she cannot imagine life on the road without Wren at her side.

There is a cruel force, however, that permeates the world they live in. It is not karma, no; that cosmic principle does not justify the bad things that happen to good people. Neither does it measure just how quickly everything slips through Finch's fingers like sand.

It starts the same as every night. A new island means a night of song and laughter, merriment leaking from the slightly open windows of their car. They are pulled to the side of the road. The sky is a deep, rich navy, stars spilled like glitter across the expanse. They have split a bottle of whiskey between them, passing the bottle around like it’s communion wine. It burns pleasantly on its way down. It makes their stories just a little funnier and their songs just a little more melodious.

“Oy, Finch, dear,” Morigana says, laughing. “Watch yerself. You’ll never be up to training in the morning if ya keep on the way yer going.”

She laughs and gently chastises the orc for acting like her mother would, passing the bottle to Wren. Wren meekly declines a third swig, before giving it to Donovan. Donovan clears his throat.

“I’ve gotta say, ladies and gents,” he chimes. “This is the big time. We do this show for the aristocracy and our names are everywhere. We’ll never have to worry about where our next meal is coming from ever again. And it’s all thanks-" he gestures to the group “-to this shower of savages. I love ya. We’re on our way.”

They cheer and toast to each other. Finch takes a hold of Wren's hand. She notes the way it trembles in her grip.

Before she can press it, before she can even raise an eyebrow, the drivers side window shatters and showers Donovan with broken glass.

It all happens so quickly. 

Finch sees rich red robes, long threatening blades. She sees the whiskey bottle go flying from Donovan's fingers, clocking one particularly tall gentleman hard. He staggers for a moment, dizzy and disoriented. Donovan takes the opportunity to open the door nearest to Finch and Wren, shouting at them to go,  _run_ , get help, don’t look back.

Wren does not hesitate. She clambers over Finch, grabbing her by the wrist as she moves through the open door. Yanking her sister as hard as she can, Wren flees, Finch in tow. They make it about 100 feet away. And then Finch does something foolish.

She looks back.

She sees them all, about two or three of them, all in dark red and gold. She sees Donovan knelt on the ground before them, the back of his shirt rumpled as though he had been lifted bodily by it. She sees Morigana and Trina fighting off two more, and she sees the vague shape of the other two huddled in the car and praying for their lives.

And then she sees the curve of the scimitar bring itself down onto the back of Donovan’s neck. He does not have time to scream.

She does it for him.

She screams, loud and violent, torn from her lungs like Donovan’s head from his shoulders. It does not stop, no matter how Wren tries to soothe her from ahead; Wren did not see it. She screams and screams, until her throat is raw and all have witnessed her sorrow and her fear and her sheer and unrelenting  _rage_. 

And as sure as the night is deadly, the scimitar wielded passes their weapon to a bigger, burlier figure, and points in the direction of the fleeing twins. It still gleams a sickening red under La Isla's starlight. Finch's stomach turns. It dawns on her what this means.

Wren runs, runs faster than she ever has, dragging her now numb sister behind her as the musclebound shadow approaches. No matter how Finch tries, she cannot clear the image of Donovan’s execution from her mind, and she cannot shake the dreadful knowledge that this is how the pair of them will end up as well.

Except, that isn’t quite how it happens.

Wren darts behind a wall, pulling Finch with her, and they huddle together. “Okay,” she says, her voice a mere breath. “We haven’t got long. You’re younger. You run-"

“What do you-"

“-to the nearest town, and-"

“Wren, what the  _fuck_  are you-"

“Finch,  _please_.” Desperation runs rampant through her twin's voice. “Please, just let me do this. You’re always savin' me. Ya have done since we were young'uns. Let me save  _you_ now.”

It takes a moment to click in Finch’s mind, but before she can even protest, even shake her head no, Wren pulls her into the tightest embrace she has ever received. She tries, she says  _no_ , she says  _we can both do this_  into her sister’s ear, but the darkness is upon them and Wren’s hands shove her forward. “ _GO_!” Her sister’s voice screams.

And so she does. 

She doesn’t dare look back this time.

She runs for what seems like miles, runs until her legs threaten to give out beneath her. She does not stop until she reaches a cold, damp, silent street, lit only by the moon and stars. Her chest is burning, but also empty. Her hands no longer shake.

She finds the warmest looking doorway she can find and huddles down into it, wrapping her shawl around herself as the night air pecks coldly at her skin.

And her chest finally cracks open. She does what comes naturally.

“ _É_ _iníní_ _,_ ” she sings to herself. Her voice sounds hollow and strange, it’s wrong, it’s not  _Wren’s_ voice. “ _É_ _iníní_ _,_ _codalaígí_ _,_ _codalaígí_ _.”_

Except it  _is_  Wren’s voice, isn’t it? The pair of them are exactly the same, to their faces and their eyes and their freckles like stars on their faces. They’re two little birds who tweet the same way, but without the wren singing next to her, the finch in her mind feels lonely and cold and bitter, and her song does not resonate the way it should.

“ _Codalaígí_ _,_ _Codalaígí_ _,_ ” Finch continues, and at this point her voice is beginning to crack and her eyes are beginning to sting, but she has to keep going. The stormy sea brewing in her lungs will only settle with sleep, and if she can’t even do that for herself, then why bother? Why not just run away and go home? Why not-

Her mind goes to too dark a place. “ _Cois_ _an_ _chlaí_ _amuigh_ _,”_ she whispers, wrapping her arms around herself tightly. “ _Cois_ _an_ _chlaí_ _amuigh_ _._ ”

It’s a mantra, almost, swirling in the air around her as the numbness in her chest finally gives way to the thunder and the rain. She doesn’t know how long it takes for her to fall asleep, but by the time she does, her eyes are red and her throat is raw and all she has ever known has been pulled right out from under her feet.

And from there, she mourns only when she can afford the luxury.

A month passes. The club she gets employed to work in is dark and dingy, and it gives her only a small wage. Her employer tends to prefer to give her food and clothing over money. But she knows that this is a job that will work for her. Her fingers are swift and light, her eye keen and sharp. Acrobatics have always been her strong suit, and it isn’t difficult to shift the focus of her dexterity to sleight of hand. The patrons are often too drunk to notice that she’s blatantly rigging the games, anyway.

Finch tells herself frequently that she will leave the job soon. It has taught her habits and skills that she uses with shame. The only thing keeping her safe from harm is her bark, which she can only hope is big enough that she does not have to take a bite from the shady customers who darken the door.

All she needs is enough money to buy herself a new Cyr wheel, and she’ll be on her way out.

The room that the club has given her to sleep in is plain and unassuming, yellowing walls and gently rotting floorboards. The air outside smells fresh in comparison to the vaguely decomposing stench of the room. On this particular evening, she walks the streets with feigned purpose, a green cloak draped over her shoulders and a dagger hidden beneath the fabric in her left hand.

The streets are emptying slowly as the night approaches, workers travelling home for the day and taverns filling with guests. She blends in well with the people of La Isla's South side, her clothing unassuming and drab and her red hair concealed under her hood. 

The man who walks into her, however, does not blend in at all. When she catches sight of him as she stumbles backward, she takes a look at his fine clothing and neat grooming and immediately thinks,  _ah,_ this side of town will eat him alive if he doesn’t hurry home.

“Are you alright, young lady?” the man says in an accented voice. His tone is genuine, but the eloquence in his voice makes her immediately wary. “It is getting late. Are you perchance lost?”

“Thank you, sir, but I know the way back to my room.” She speaks flatly in hopes that it will end a conversation before it stats, and her accent is a carefully practiced English instead of the country burr of her Irish drawl. She is very careful not to look him in the eyes. But just as she is about to push past him and into the night, he catches her by the shoulder. 

“Hold on.” He squints at her in the dim moonlight. Finch still staunchly refuses to meet his gaze, but it doesn’t seem to deter him. “You are very familiar, miss. Have we met before?”

A wave of panic brews in Finch’s lungs. There’s no way, is there, that he recognises her from her circus days. She never even performed with her troupe in La Isla. “No, sir,” she tells him, looking around furtively to make sure they are not being watched; thankfully, they are not. “I am no one. You have never seen me before. I bid you goodnight.”

“No, I know where I’ve seen you before!” The man produces a poster from his satchel, and her heart almost stops. There, in big black font on the paper, reads the word “ **MISSING** ”, with an artist’s impression of her face that is too accurate for her to be comfortable. Underneath, her name is printed in italic calligraphy. A reward is advertised for information that leads to her “rescue”; 1,000 GP.

He frowns at her, but it is not malicious. “Are you  _really_ no one, Miss O' Callaghan?” he presses.

Finch is too afraid to lie. “Where- Where’d ya find that?”

“It is not important.” He folds the paper, tucking it away into his pocket, and looks back down at Finch. He laughs when he sees her worried expression. “Worry not, young lady. I have no want for the reward money. I actually wish to help you.”

She is immediately suspicious. “No, y’don’t,” she tells him. “You’re gonna walk away from me, pal, and you’re not gonna tell a feckin’ soul that’cha saw me here tonight. Got that?”

She fixes him with her most intimidating glare. She knows that this is most likely an unwise decision. This man is well dressed and neatly groomed, a sign of his wealth and social status. It is very likely that he could have her sent straight home on the next ship should he so choose, and after all, who is she in comparison to him than just a petty criminal?

He just laughs again, though, a warm expression on his face that creases the corners of his eyes. “My, you’ve got a sharp bite on you,” he says. “But I promise that what I say is genuine. You are looking for someone, yes?”

“How did you-"

“Lucky guess.” He sweeps an imaginary speck of dust off of his coat. “Also, I highly doubt that another missing girl with the same surname as you is a coincidence, hm?”

Finch shivers, and pulls her cloak a little tighter around her shoulders. “Okay, so even  _if_ I’m lookin’ fer someone,” she says. “What could you possibly do to help me? It’s not like you can give her back to me, is it?”

The man hums in contemplation, as if he is considering the dishonest response, but he shakes his head “Maybe not,” he admits. “I will concede to that, Miss O' Callaghan. But I prefer to focus on what I can do as opposed to what I can’t. So with that in mind, allow me to make as suggestion to you.”

He leans forward, ensuring the gesture does not encroach on her personal space, and produces the poster from his pocket once again. He taps the page lightly, right where Finch's dazzling performer’s grin lights it up. “If you agree to do me one small favour,” he says, “this girl doesn’t exist anymore.”

That piques Finch's interest. She stands, silent and stunned, as the gentleman elaborates as to what he means. Her missing posters would be pulled down, her name scrubbed from public records. Finch would turn to dust before the community’s eyes, but a phoenix would rise from her ashes. A new woman, with no history and no bounty on her head and, most importantly, nothing stopping her from finding her twin. And a small favour is nothing in exchange for the amazing thing that this man is offering her.

“You can do all that?” She asks him, when he finishes outlining the ideas.

“With relative ease, actually.” He folds away the poster.

“And you know I could never possibly repay you for that sort of kindness, don’t’cha?

“Like I say,” he says, with a gentle smile. “I am in no need of monetary gain. All I will ask of you is a favour, if and when I should need one.”

“ _Why_?” Her voice is a whisper now, pulled tight and threatening to give way to the lump building in her throat. “Why are you helping me?”

The man shrugs, absently fiddling with the cuff of his sleeve. “Your story moves me, I suppose,” he says, as nonchalantly as if Finch had asked him what he had bought from the town shop. 

“I don’t even  _know_  you.”

“Easily fixable.” The gentleman sticks out his hand, with a winning smile and a kindness in his eyes. “You may call me Lord Portor. I am very glad we have become acquainted. Do you accept my offer?”

Finch looks at the man's -  _Portor's_  – hand with a vague wariness. She watches his body language carefully, listens to his tone, searches for any clues, but finds nothing. All she can tell was that he is being genuine, and that it seems that he really does want to help her.

She takes his hand, a small smile gnawing at the corners of her mouth. “Well, I guess so,” she says, shaking his hand firmly. “My name’s Finch O' Callaghan, but ch'already knew that, I suppose.”

Portor grins back at her. “A lovely name indeed,” he tells her. “Very pretty. But I think that we can come up with something a little more, shall we say, suited for your goals, correct?”

Finch beams right back.

She likes this man.

\--

Finch becomes Strich, and Strich buries Finch.

There is no time to mourn the sweet little girl that has been laid to rest. All Strich knows is a world of blood and a world of cruelty. She has fought tooth and nail for life. She has clawed her way from the dust and spread fiery wings to fly. And she doesn’t just fly. She fucking  _soars_.

Portor gives her the remainder of what she needs to buy a new Cyr Wheel, and she’s out of the sketchy clubs like a shot. A wheel in her hands and a dance at her feet give her more money in a day than the club gave her in a week. As she twirls and vaults for the people who have become hers, she finally feels a sense of security and warmth in this uncaring and bitter place. She feels welcome. She feels home.

The first nightmare knocks her for six.

She sees that axe cut through Donovan’s neck like butter and hears herself scream and feels her sisters final, tight embrace and then she’s awake. She’s not sure if her own screams woke her or if the immediate instinct to  _live_ does, but it takes some time to quell the sound. She doesn’t sleep for days after that.

But rest becomes fitful, nightmares commonplace. She fights on through. She continues to draw breath.

Wren’s whereabouts still leaves her baffled. Another month passes, two, and there’s still no indication as to where she could be. Bug Strich refuses to consider any other option than Wren just being missing. And so she continues to search.

She and Lord Portor remain in steady contact. He attend her first show in the village square, gives her loans when she needs them (which, to her credit, is very rarely). But there’s a time, for about a month or two, that she does not hear from him. She grows worried. She grows anxious. But she keeps on performing. She keeps moving in the only way she knows how.

It comes up to a year since everything fell apart. With no sign of her sister and her benefactor seemingly having given up communications, on one particular night, Strich feels a heavy weight of despondency settle in her chest. Maybe she has been a foolish child the whole time, maybe she should call it quits and hand herself in. For all she knows, she may never find her sister. 

She pulls the scarf she uses to hide her face off as she enters her living quarters, relieved that she can finally be herself in her home, but still unable to ignore the deep pit of despair forming in her gut. Why not just give up now, while she can? Why not just go home to-

She nearly jumps out of her skin when she sees the red envelope sitting on her desk, a pretty red rose lying next to it. She reflexively draws one of her daggers as she approaches it, until she sees the oh-so familiar seal on it and the weight in her chest lifts. Oh god, oh  _thank god_ , she hasn’t been left alone after all.

She examines it as carefully as her excitement will allow before tearing it open, the sight of Portor’s handwriting as comforting as her own father’s was when they still exchanged letters. 

 _My precious star_ ,

 _I_ _hope this letter finds you in good health_. _I_ _apologise for my absence – I_ _know that these last few months have been difficult for you, but understand that I'm here for you. I have helped you in whatever way I could find_ _. I_ _have finally and completely_ _covered your name and all the records associated with you, as you requested. I know you said you'll pay me back in the future, but all I'm asking is for a simple_ _favour_ _, and I think now is the time for that_ _favour_ _. I hope someday I'll see you_ _in the spotlight as you deserve to be_ _again – I_ _miss watching your incredible shows. Come home at dawn tomorrow to discuss the details_ _of my request_ _._

_Your biggest fan,_

_Cole D._ _Portor_

A smile spreads across her face as she reads, and by the time she finally clambers into bed and switches off her lights, the hole in her chest has somewhat mended itself.

 _Oh well_ , she thinks.  _Too late to back out now._

And then she falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> im on [tumblr](http://gravitaz.tumblr.com) if u wanna ask me anything about strich or the campaign! ask me anything cos I love to talk about it :0
> 
> thanks to leroy for writing such a kickass campaign, and thanks to my fellow players cat, gaby and ryan for helping me develop my baby's character a little more!


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